Sainsbury's Human Resource Management Case Study: Analysis and Review

This case study examines Sainsbury's human resource management (HRM) practices, focusing on recruitment, selection, training, and development, as well as diversity and equality initiatives. It explores how Sainsbury's aims to achieve its goals by empowering its workforce, managing consumer needs, and providing effective financial returns. The analysis covers the benefits of diversity, including innovation and customer satisfaction, and the application of sociocultural and capabilities approaches to managing equality. The case study also discusses the company's strategies for achieving a competitive advantage, including recruitment and selection processes, and the impacts of training and development on employee performance and company culture. The study highlights the importance of these HRM strategies in enhancing productivity, fostering a healthy work environment, and improving the overall quality of work life within Sainsbury's.

Human Resource case study
of Sainsbury

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1..............................................................................................................................................1
2. ............................................................................................................................................3
3..............................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is an effective approach which is considered by
organisation to handle their human resource in an effective manner and concentrates on attaining
firms goals and objectives by empowering workforce of the organisation. In other words, HRM
is a bunch of interlinked policies along with the philosophical and ideological underpinning. This
is an unique employment management approach which considers to meet competitive benefits
via strategic expansion of more committed working environment (CG Davidson, McPhail and
Barry, 2011). Human resources enhancing as being the most crucial resource in involvement to
an firm's entire capacity as well as success for getting corporate goals. Henceforth, HRM is a
crucial factor for strategic decision making process (Human resource management, 2016.). To
handle and monitor human resource, various issues like- recruitment, development of employee,
schemes of rewarding and encouraging effective relations among employees, that are common
human resource management functions.
1.
Sainsbury plc is the supermarket retail chain which was founded J. Sainsbury in UK. This has so
many branches across the nations offer diverse range of goods. Sainsbury monitor HRM policy
under which entire decisions are adopted by the top level managers (Clarke and Hill, 2012). The
key Sainsbury's goals and objectives is to manage consumer requires successfully as well as
render capitalist with an effective financial return. Main aims of company is to render whole
colleagues effective opportunities of rendering their qualities & are effectively compensation for
their involvement to business growth.
Sainsbury is a brand that work to generate to offer customer quality of product at an adequate
costs. Sainsbury store consist an adequate emphasis on healthy, fresh, safe as well as tasty food
along with consistent launching of services and products for consumer.
Sainsbury retail sores have 150000 colleagues & with more than 20million consumers are visit
outlets each week. Sainsbury offers diverse products such as grocery, food and many other kind
of household services & goods.
They offers various other brand products name and company brand product, that are often more
cheaper with the brand name.
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Sainsbury provides huge opportunities for the suitable candidates. The HR department express
and perform human resources practices and policies which emerge the workers behaviours and
competencies, the organisation requires to attain their strategic objectives. New plans and
strategies needs to make employees with skills, knowledge and inspiration to smoothly new
programmed plant.
Sainsbury plc is planning to develop human resource department so that the they can build
effective sustainability. The first step for developing human resource department is to provides
training and development so that skills can be enhanced.
Sainsbury plc have strong training and development process in order to get an impressive
performance from workers through varying their behaviour, traits, knowledge as well as skills
via diverse practices (Cardona and Morley, 2013). During work, training emerged employees to
achieve firm future and existing requirement. Henceforth, training helps the firm to modify
values, attitudes or firm's culture that is implemented as the tool.
Training refer to providing new worker chance to emerge abilities and skills to work job in an
effective manner. Emerge skills by means reflecting new sales officer about how to sell goods.
Training reflects to provides new employee opportunity to emerge their job in an effective
manner. There are so many benefits which can arise from the training and development activities
in a firm.
Growth of skills of employees:- This emerges in developing abilities as well as entire worker's
personality.
Productivity:-This assists in enhancing productivity of employees which assist the firm in
attaining its pre-set targets.
Healthy environment:- T&D activities form healthy work atmosphere to generate strong
connection among employees and assist in attaining firms goals faster. This assist in enhancing
company's evolution. i.e. Company take highly participation in process of decision-making and
soling issues and conflicts. Financial gain via greater effectiveness in procedure as well as
innovation of goods or plan are enhanced.
Company culture:- This assist in emerging and enhancing company's cultures and success. This
likewise assist in incorporating learning culture throughout the firm (Campbell and Burton,
2012).
Quality work life:- It is enhanced by taking assassinate from training as well as development.
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Training & development assist in improving diverse concept which successful employee as well
as managers commonly reflects like stimulation, quality of leadership and effective trait.
Healthy Atmosphere of Workplace: Training & development assist in incorporating healthy
healthy working environment This assist in incorporating effective employee relationship among
each other. Henceforth, firm objectives could be attained in an effective manner.
2.
It is important for company to hold diversity and achieve its benefits in order to
achieve growth and competitive advantage in competitive environment. With the help iof
diversity plan the company can achieve following benefits:-
Benefits of diversity: In order compete and perform well in dynamic environment the
company need to appoint employees carrying different backgrounds and skills which help them
in getting new ideas and suggestions which directly help in gaining competitive advantage as
well as also able to meet customer's requirements in effective and efficient manner.
A diverse gathering of new ideas and talent enables an organisation to offer services to its
customers on an international level.
A well managed workforce diversity help company in getting new and innovative ideas
with the help of which they can formulate business strategy in order to fulfil customer's needs
and demands in more effective and efficient manner.
A well managed workforce diversity also encourage all employees to contribute more to achive
organisational goals with the help of their skills and knowledge so that they can increase its
productivity and income as well.
During 2004/05, Sainsbury plc focuses on bringing diversity management website on
internet which help them in managing trust and belief and poor management and also focuses on
identifying regional commodity in order to fulfil regional people requirement (Camelo-Ordaz,
and et. al., 2011).
Equity and diversity plans help in providing training and direction to all disabled
employees which help them in getting opportunities and recruitment. During 2004/05, Sainsbury
Plc implement various initiatives for the welfare of the colleagues suffering form any disabilities
which help them in attaining huge profits.
The mixed age workforce brings maximum satisfaction through demonstrating identity of their
customers.
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Sainsbury's policies related with diversity and equality are an important of of their
business strategy. With the help of this the company focusing on adding extra features and values
to their product in order in enhance customer's satisfaction level which directly improve its sales.
Dynamic in cover holidays has improved as diverse religious festivals are spread out throughout
the year. A calender of religious festivals is generated and reflected in stores.
There is another important approach i.e. Performance appraisal approach which help in
evaluating current performance of company and employees and accordingly implement
corrective actions such as conducting motivational programs in order to improve their
performance level so that they can contribute more to achieve organisational goal. Equality can
be achieved when companies meet a culture and analyse management audit.
It has been founded by Saisbury Plc that gender diversity improves performance of groups
process whereas through racial diversity reserved them. The reason being occurring inequalities
on the basis of racial or gender are related with some components linked with the performance
appraisal such as lower evaluating and different standards (Bučiūnienė and Kazlauskaitė, 2012).
Therefore it is important for management of equality and diversity to present such
discriminations on the basis of racial or gender through implementing corrective measures and
therefore evaluate its performance.
Sociocultural approach to handling equality and diversity:
Cultural diversity becomes a main feature of company operated across worldwide. HRM consist
of different functions, procedures, and actions with an objective of providing guidance and
handling company's Human resources and social and cultural problems also play an important
part in affecting human resources in an adversely manner. Handling human resource in a firm
needs a careful evaluation and understanding of internal as well as external environment.
Diverse researches is convened to determine prominent dimensions along with cultures differ has
emerged a guidelines related with communication made between different cultures that covers
power distance, masculinity uncertainty rejection. Other scholars strongly pressurised that
language, gender, and religion are similarly crucial in handling diversity throughout the diverse
cultural nations.
Paternalistic leadership is elaborated by different by diverse others in their own path over the
time. This is a kind of leadership style combines regulation and authority with few room for
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kindness (Bondarouk and Olivas-Lujan, 2014). In some nations inequality on the basis of power
is exist and accepted which bring dissatisfaction among members who carry low power distance.
Companies faces many issues in handling diversity at perosnal and group levels more
specifically at the time when staff member in the company are from different religions. For
example, 9/11 attack in USA enhanced the risk of religious ill-treatment amount Muslim
community whereas as per the study provided by the administrative body of America-Islamic
relations, there was a 15% enhancement in cases of misbehave and bias in the workplace.
Gender inequality is mostly debated topic throughout the planet more specifically in diversity
and equity. There have numerous laws or norms which have enacted to address these kind of
issues and the UN has made a law on gender equality and woman empowerment in an effective
manner. These are regularly required to be followed by many of the companies.
Capabilities approach: Diversity management and equal opportunities are the two diverse
terms. The main aim of the equal opportunities is to protect the employees from the
discriminations based on racial, gender, disability and promote equality in every areas of
department. With the help of this approach the company can provide equal rights and
responsibilities to their employees which maximise their level of satisfaction. Therefore
capabilities approach is also become of the part of equal and diversity opportunities which is
used to delegate work according to their capabilities. Such as division of work between young
and senior citizen should be different. The company need to follow legal laws and standards and
implement specific diverse workplace programs such as Sex discrimination Act in UK. The
capability approach is useful in handling diversity and equality which enable company to
identify issues related to gender inequality which help in preventing discrimination on the basis
of gender or religion (Ashleigh, Higgs and Dulewicz, 2012).
3.
Sainsbury is the largest grocery retailer company. This company have large number of
super market chain in UK. It provides their products and services in all over the world. There is
huge competition in retail market and large number of other companies provides their functions.
This will affects the ability of company to earn large number of profits and attain competitive
advantage. There are large number of approaches present which helps in development of the
organisation. It is the duty of the management of Sainsbury to adopt such approaches and
strategies which helps in development of employees and organisation (Pučėtaitė, Lämsä and
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Novelskaitė, 2010). The major impact of implementation of such approaches and strategies helps
in improvement of their profitability and attainment of competitive advantage. The two
approaches which are select by the management of Sainsbury are recruitment and selections and
training and development which contributes in achievement of competitive advantage.
Application of such approaches and their benefits to Sainsbury are define below:
 Recruitment and selection: It is the duty of the HR manager of company to adopt best
policy of recruitment and selection. This is the important process which helps in
development of the performance of overall organisation (Fong and et. al., 2011). This
includes about the identification of the needs of employees and appoint skilful staff. This
helps in properly manage their different function and achieve their within stipulated
time. This contributes in increase the motivation level and positive atmosphere at
workplace. This will contributes in improvement of the performance level of other
employees and their passion regarding their work. The major benefit which can be
derived from effective implementation of such approach is that it helps in attainment of
competitive advantage. This approach helps in appointment of the talented person which
increase innovation level and saves the time and cost of organisation. This will also
contributes in providence of good quality products. This will provide opportunity of
attainment of large market share and reduce the impact of competition.
 Training and development: This is also the important approach which helps Sainsbury in
attainment of competitive advantage. It is the duty of HR manager of company to identify
the different needs of training and development within their employees. This will have
large number of benefits which can be derived from adoption of such programmes.
Training programmes helps in development of existing skills of their employees and
provides the knowledge regarding handling of new machines. This contributes in
improvement of their passion and enthusiasm regarding their activities. This enhance
their ability to perform their function with new ideas and improves the quality. This
provide the opportunity to company to make effective relation with their employees and
improve communication and coordination (Dickmann, Brewster and Sparrow, 2016).
This provides in development of their productivity, healthy environment, financial gain,
team spirit, quality work etc. This contributes in achievement of their desired results and
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success of their different strategies. All such activities improves overall organisation
performance and contributes in achievement of competitive advantage.
Similarly, development programmes helps in development of the personality of their
employees and build professional career. This contributes in retention of their employees for
longer period of time and identification of the demand of their customers (Stanton and et. al.,
2010). This provides the opportunity to make their products as per their preferences and satisfy
their different demands. This helps in attraction of the large number of customers and capturing
more market share.
Affect of internal and external factors on two approaches
The approaches above mentioned which are adopt by the management of Sainsbury are
get influenced by internal and external factors. Internal factors are those which are present in
organisation and affect the ability of management in implementation of such approaches. There
are many external factors which are present in external business environment which affects the
ability of company in providence of their different functions. There impacts are mentioned
below:
 Internal factors: This includes employees, stakeholders which affects the ability of
company implementation of such approaches. Resistance of employees regarding
attending training and development programmes reduces the performance (Chow and
Gong, 2010). Old employees also de motivates with appointment of new employees at
higher places.
 External factors: This will affects the ability of company to adopt strategies and changes
their plans with the change in situation. This will make difficulty in adoption of such
approaches.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been concluded that human resources department is
one of the main part of every business organisation. The information about Sainsbury operational
department are identified by using various crucial analysis by using approaches. These are
helpful in managing quality and diversity at the workplace of sainsbury. Discussion about
Internal and external impact that are affecting these approaches in the organisation. Evaluation
about proper use of approaches are used with human resource management to gain competitive
advantages over other companies.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Ashleigh, M.J., Higgs, M. and Dulewicz, V., 2012. A new propensity to trust scale and its
relationship with individual well‐being: implications for HRM policies and practices.
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Bondarouk, T. and Olivas-Lujan, M.R. Eds., 2014. Human Resource Management, Social
Innovation and Technology. Emerald Group Publishing.
Bučiūnienė, I. and Kazlauskaitė, R., 2012. The linkage between HRM, CSR and performance
outcomes. Baltic Journal of Management. 7(1). pp.5-24.
Camelo-Ordaz, and et. al. ., 2011. The influence of human resource management on knowledge
sharing and innovation in Spain: the mediating role of affective commitment. The
International Journal of Human Resource Management. 22(07). pp.1442-1463.
Campbell, N. and Burton, F. eds., 2012. Japanese multinationals: Strategies and management in
the global kaisha (Vol. 7). Routledge.
Cardona, P. and Morley, M. eds., 2013. Manager-subordinate trust: A global perspective.
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CG Davidson, M., McPhail, R. and Barry, S., 2011. Hospitality HRM: past, present and the
future. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 23(4). pp.498-
516.
Chow, I.H.S. and Gong, Y., 2010. The linkage of HRM and knowledge-related performance in
China's technology-intensive industries. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management. 21(8). pp.1289-1306.
Dickmann, M., Brewster, C. and Sparrow, P. eds., 2016. International Human Resource
Management: Contemporary HR Issues in Europe. Routledge.
Pučėtaitė, R., Lämsä, A.M. and Novelskaitė, A., 2010. Building organizational trust in a low-
Stanton, P. and et. al., 2010. Singing the same song: translating HRM messages across
management hierarchies in Australian hospitals. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management. 21(4), pp.567-581.
Fong, C.Y. and et. al., 2011. HRM practices and knowledge sharing: an empirical study.
International Journal of Manpower. 32(5/6), pp.704-723.
Clarke, M.A. and Hill, S.R., 2012. Promoting employee wellbeing and quality service outcomes:
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Online
Human resource management. 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/hrm/human-resource-management-functions-managerial-
operative-and-advisory-function/27995/>.
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